“Not a word,” I growled.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He held up his hands to ward my frown off, then grabbed a couple of plates before walking out from behind the bar to deliver their meals.
Beau didn’t stop talking the entire time. Watching Mackenzie try to interject, only to get spoken over, fucking killed me. Why the hell didn’t he just shut up for a second and let her talk? That soft voice, the cute accent, the memory of her getting excited by the emus this morning filled my ears, drowning out all else.
“Your meal.” I spun around, blinking in incomprehension as Vance placed a plate before me. “Knife and forks are there.” He nodded to the jar stuffed with cutlery on the bar. “And if it helps, I don’t think the girl is having much fun. Never known a man to talk so much about himself as that Beau.”
But it didn’t. While the thought of Mackenzie getting emotionally involved with Beau damn near killed me, some part of me couldn’t take pleasure in her discomfort.
“Not sure why,” I grumbled, starting to cut into my meal. “I bet Mackenzie doesn’t give a shit about how many fast horses he and his dad bred. She had a whole life…”
As I glanced back over my shoulder, I watched her sit back in her chair, food untouched. That small frown had her words coming back to me.
“You don’t need to worry about me.”Too late, I thought, studying Mackenzie’s every expression, trying to guess at what she was thinking.“I know something about bad guys.”
What did that mean? I was kicking myself now for overlooking that little titbit of information. Too focussed on trying to get her to do what I wanted. That had me flushing with shame. It took a sheer act of will to cut a piece of meat off, but when I started chewing, it tasted like dust in my mouth.
“She’s a pretty girl,” Vance prompted, smiling when I shot him a dark look. “Too good for the likes of Beau Argyle." I kept on cutting, chewing, hoping the old man would take a hint, but he didn’t. “Something she seems to have worked out.”
His look over my shoulder, his eyes travelling towards the door, had me dropping my cutlery with a clatter. The remains of my beer was drunk down, then I dropped a couple of bills big enough to cover several meals on the bar, because if Mackenzie was leaving, so was I. Beau, alone, in the car park with the girl. That was not gonna happen, not while I still drew breath. Shoving the side door open, I stumbled out into the carpark, just in time to catch him leaning over Mackenzie.
“So I had a nice time…”
No, she didn’t. Working on the farm, you learned to take notice of all the small things. Wilting crops told me the irrigation wasn’t reaching that part of the paddock, or a fungal infection had set in. All of the sheep raising their heads at once told me wild dogs were out in the forests. And Mackenzie plastering that curvy body against the side of the car made clear she did not appreciate the attention she was getting.
Which is why I strode over.
Plucking the keys from where she had one pushed out between her fingers, I had the car unlocked and forced the door open, pushing Beau backwards.
“Mackenzie’s going home now,” I announced and didn’t that have the prick’s pretty face screwing up into a petulant frown?
“She didn’t say?—”
“Gotta get up early,” she said, sliding into the passenger side seat. “We’re feeding the cattle first thing tomorrow morning. Thanks for dinner, Beau.”
When he went to get closer, somehow needing reassurance that she really meant that, I stepped between them.
“You heard the lady,” I told him. “We need to get to bed.” His brows drew down hard at that. “Early start tomorrow.”
“I’ll call you,” he said, trying to look around me. “I could take you out to a winery or bring you to the stud.”
As I got in the driver’s seat, she let out a long, shuddering sigh.
“Not if I can help it,” she whispered.
A glance her way and her eyes met mine. My eyebrow cocked upwards in question and she shot me a guilty smile. “That was…” Her grin fading had my hands clenching the keys tight, but I shoved them into the ignition and then took off out of the car park, heading towards home. “That was a mistake.”
I allowed myself one last look at Beau, catching him standing with his hands on his hips as he watched us go, but refocussing on Mackenzie was a relief of sorts.
“OK, then tell me about it.” I could feel her staring at me, but my focus remained on the road. Not just because kangaroos could come bounding out with absolutely no warning, potentially totalling the car. If I looked at Mackenzie now, I wouldn’t stop staring, so I drove on. “What’d that man do?”
Chapter 12
Mackenzie
“What’d that man do?”
Troy’s words hung between us, getting bigger and bigger, because there was another passenger in the car.
